Sorority Row (Blu-Ray)

Now available on DVD and Blu-Ray

Cast:



Briana Evigan as Cassidy



Margo Harshman as Chugs



Rumer Willis as Ellie



Jamie Chung as Claire



Leah Pipes as Jessica



Audrina Patridge as Megan



Julian Morris as Andy



Carrie Fisher as Mrs. Crenshaw

Directed by Stewart Hendler

Review:

As beloved as the slasher genre may be by its diehard fans, with a few trend-setting exceptions like Black Christmas (1974) and Halloween (1978), slashers films are a mediocre lot. By design, they are textbook examples of copycat filmmaking, films that eschew originality in order to emulate an established formula with rigorous fidelity. Even the insertion of self-referential in-jokes into the Scream films didn’t meaningfully alter the slasher formula; instead it only gave it a more ironic, self-aware attitude (although to give credit where credit is due, 1986’s Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was ahead of the original Scream on this count by ten years). This strict adherence to formula is both the bane of slasher films as well as essential to its appeal. To non-fans, one slasher movie looks the same as another but true slasher connoisseurs pride themselves on being able to divine the subtle differences between these look-alike films.

One of the more well regarded of the deluge of early ’80s slashers was 1983’s House on Sorority Row. Directed by Brian DePalma protégé, Mark Rosman, House on Sorority Row brought more style to the table than was usually seen in slasher films. It also had black humored fun with its storyline involving the efforts of a group of sorority sisters to try to keep track of the body of the tyrannical housemother that they accidentally murdered. Admired by slasher aficionados but little known by anyone else, House on Sorority Row was a curious candidate for a remake. As a name property, House on Sorority Row ranks awfully low on the recognition scale – a fact borne out by the shortening of the remake’s title to simply Sorority Row. Shorter title or no, the remake garnered only meager business in theaters last fall and instantly entered movie history (or movie oblivion) as another disposable slasher film, destined to be noticed or appreciated only by the sub-genre’s most dedicated fans. As those fans will tell you, though, that puts Sorority Row into good company. Will Sorority Row one day be as well remembered as such past favorites as Prom Night (1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), and April Fool’s Day (1986)? It’s too soon to say how time will treat Sorority Row but I do think it makes the grade as a satisfying slasher.

Written by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger and directed by Stewart Hendler, Sorority Row‘s most noticeable alteration from the original is that the girls of Theta Pi are much bigger bitches this time around. Sorority Row wants to emulate the likes of Heathers (1988) and Mean Girls (2004) as much as it does slasher pics and while it isn’t as lacerating or observant as those films, its mercilessly catty dialogue is frequently funny. Leading the ranks of Theta Pi with nasty vigor is Leah Pipes as Jessica, a girl without a trace of sympathy or humanity (and who might be in shouting distance of the White House as her boyfriend’s father is a likely VP candidate). When a prank goes wrong and one of the sisters ends up with a tire iron through her chest, it’s Jessica that strong arms everyone involved into covering up their crime. But come graduation time eight months later, these girls are getting phone messages that make them wonder whether the body they disposed of was all the way dead. Before long, a killer brandishing a pimped-out tire iron is exterminating each of the girls involved with the murder and in true slasher movie tradition, there’s plenty of red herrings vying for the audience’s attention. As the bodies pile up, the list of possible suspects dwindle. If you think that Sorority Row may come down to a final struggle between good girl Briana Evigan (as Cassidy – the default conscience of Theta Pi, thanks to the fact that she initially pushed her sisters to do the right thing and collectively fess up to the murder) versus whoever the killer turns out to be – then congratulations, you must’ve seen at least one slasher film before!

While Sorority Row doesn’t offer a single new idea, as slasher films go it works. Hendler’s direction goes past the merely functional to offer some stylish shots – but never to the point where it seems like he’s trying to hard sell the audience on his visual chops. When it comes to its kills, Sorority Row may not be as gory as some fans would like but Hendler still puts the killer’s signature tire iron to good use. In demonstrating the variety of different kills that this tire iron outfitted with assorted blades can offer, Sorority Row is like a grisly infomercial for the latest innovation in murder weapons. It’s the kind of thing that MacGyver would come up with, if he were a psycho.

Unfortunately, Sorority Row goes from agreeably mediocre to irritatingly lame with the climatic reveal of the killer. Going back to the early ’80s, this has proven to be the Achilles’ Heel of many a slasher movie. In fact, I’d be hard put to think of more than one or two examples of slasher films that really did have really great reveals but Sorority Row is worse than most when it comes to explaining whodunit and why. Then again, if you’ve already spent ninety minutes or so of your time watching a middle-of-the-road slasher movie, it isn’t the kind of conclusion you’re likely to get too upset over. Chances are you knew you hadn’t put Psycho or Silence of the Lambs into your DVD player. It’s Sorority Row – some sucking is part of the deal.

The Blu-Ray presentation on this Summit Entertainment release is adequate but truthfully, unless you’re a Blu-Ray completist it’s not the kind of movie that you need the premium visual presentation for. A picture-in-picture commentary with director Hendler – joined by stars Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, and Margo Harshman – heads up the special features but as my player isn’t enabled for PIP, I can only say that the audio commentary was as chatty as you might expect, with plenty of anecdotes from the production. Other special features include the featurette “Sorority Secrets: Stories from the Set,” which includes interviews with the female cast members who gush about their co-stars and offer testimony that their fellow actresses are nothing like the bitchy characters they’re portraying (as a heads-up, don’t watch this before seeing the feature as every character’s grisly end is revealed). There’s also “Killer 101,” featuring interviews with the director and the screenwriters (as another spoiler alert, the identity of the killer is revealed here), and a “Kill Switch” option in which viewers can skip ahead to each murder scene. Unfortunately, this feature only serves to highlight the fact that Sorority Row‘s kills aren’t real showstoppers. Deleted scenes (all accompanied by introductions from Hendler explaining why each scene was removed – oddly except for the one that really called for a director’s intro, the wisely unused ending) and blooper-iffic outtakes round out the package.

Chances are, you already know well before reading any review whether you’re the audience for Sorority Row or not. If you’ve pledged to see every slasher movie ever made, then this fits the bill. If you’re only interested in seeing the few slashers that truly matter, however, then it should be enough to say that’s a fraternity that Sorority Row doesn’t belong to.